This brings total number of polio cases to nine in 2014, all from same agency of tribal belt.
The National Institute of Health in Islamabad confirmed a new wild poliovirus (type-1) case on Sunday from North Waziristan.
The latest victim of the crippling disease is a 16-month-old boy Umer Gul, son of Bobrai, a resident of Mizer, Miranshah tehsil. Parents of all nine children afflicted with the disease have confirmed that none of the minors had received any polio vaccination.
This brings the total number of polio cases to nine in 2014, all from the same agency of the tribal belt. Five of the cases were confirmed from Miranshah tehsil and the remaining four from Mirali.
The Prime Minister’s Polio Monitoring and Coordination Cell, which confirmed the latest case, also sent out recommendations to help curb the epidemic.
Doctors at the monitoring cell contend the first step to a long plan of action for eradicating the poliovirus is to gain access to all children in the tribal belt; those who have contracted the disease and those who have not.
However, this is only possible by taking on board all stakeholders and increasing civil-military coordination. Doctors also feel the low transmission season that is currently ongoing is critical in bringing about a successful implementation of this first step.
The second step is to ensure sound population immunity levels in areas surrounding the afflicted North and South Waziristan agencies where a ban against vaccinations has been in place since 2012. This will help limit the spread of the outbreak, contends the monitoring cell.
The press release stated the movement of populations from the tribal belt should be tracked, and upon entry into adjacent districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, be vaccinated. This should extend to all populations which have been displaced and are resettled elsewhere. The cessation of supplementary immunisation activities in North and South Waziristan since June of 2012 was cited as one of the causes for the ongoing outbreak of the disease in the government issued press release.
While some samples are still under process at the NIH, the total number of polio cases from last year remains at 93.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 10th, 2014.
COMMENTS (3)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
North Waziristan can be called a hub of polio virus too.
@ Bharat R.
Sound advice with which I am 800 % in agreement. We here in India must build an impermeable barrier between ourselves and Pakistan.
With India tomorrow (Feb. 11) being formally declared polio free by the WHO and given the prevalence of polio in Pakistan, India must ensure that the polio virus does join the list of other unwelcome exports from Pakistan into India; namely terrorists, heroin and counterfeit Indian currency notes. It is thus imperative for India to stop providing visa’s to Pakistanis to visit India and simultaneously prohibit Indian’s from visiting Pakistan. India should not be swayed by sympathy inducing arguments about the need for maintaining people to people contact, helping divided families and using visit visa’s as confidence building measure to foster peace. India must instead be free to enjoy the fruits of eschewing the temptation of acquiring lots of nuclear “bums” and weapon systems in order to make resources available for polio eradication unlike Pakistan.